Work life

Buzzings from the hive

I’ve been spending time in Plaza One, whereas I usually work in Plaza Three. Although they are only a couple of hundred feet away, it is another world over there. There are a lot more suits and a lot fewer Indians. I like to think that I’ve time-traveled into the seventies when I go over there. All the executives have pompous nameplates with their title and last name only — “Mr. Slevenly.” They sit in these little rooms with glass front doors and a secretary guarding them. Sometimes the secretary’s nameplate will only have her first name on it. It’s so weird.

Elevator ettiquette is odd. It is all about chivalry over there, to the point where a man in the front of the elevator will usually manuever so that a woman in the back of the elevator can get off first. I have seen men, in an attempt not to exit first, actually block the woman’s path and make it harder for her to squeeze by. The other odd part of chivalry, which is like reverse-age-chivalry, is that I get those kindly smiles from older women all the time — you know, the kind that say, What a nice young man you are. (The cattle here in Plaza Three don’t do that, probably because I shove past them on my way out of the elevator.)

Also, because they are so much stodgier, Plaza One people make the corniest of elevator jokes. If you carry food on the elevator, you are bound to get someone looking over at you with exaggerated eyes saying, “Mmmmmm! That looks gooooood! Hey, Bob, don’t you think this guy should give us some of his rutabaga?” or “What a nice guy! Turnips are my favorite! Thank you!!!”  You could walk onto the elevator carrying a steaming bag of horse shit and they would say, “You bring enough for everyone???”

My dad warned me about these people, but I didn’t listen.